Fox is just trying to make money off the licenses they have while they can.

It's just unfortunate that they haven't got a clue on how to make good films with what they have rights to!

At least Bryan Singer's moved away from superheroes for the time being. His X-Men and Superman films were awful!

As for Tim Story's FF films, they just lacked scope and script. Seriously, it's as if he were given the Cliffs Notes version of the background stories and character personalities. The filmmakers sure didn't flesh the characters out well at all. Very mediocre films.

My other problem with the Fox films -- they looked like they were shot for TV and were done on a TV budget as well. I just don't see how they rumored budgets for these films were spent well at all.

People complain about the makeup and age prosthetics in Watchmen. The costumes, sfx, and about everything else important in the FF and X-Men films were 100 times worse than the stuff people nitpicked about in Watchmen. It sure didn't help that the stories being told in those films weren't unveiled as well as Watchmen was, either, and Watchmen is far from being the Citizen Kane of hero movies, too!

GeorgeC wrote:Watchmen is far from being the Citizen Kane of hero movies, too!

Says who? If anything could claim that title, Watchmen would definitely be it. Oh yeah, I forgot, you don't like any of these movies (and you call yourself a fan )

I like both good comics and good films.

They are not mutually exclusive but just because a film is based on a character doesn't mean it's a good adaptation, either.

I could count on one hand the number of really good films based on superheroes.

I just have higher standards than most people.

I want to be entertained but also see that the spirit and integrity of characters are respected... I've seen little of the latter two in most superhero live-action films.

Animation still has a far better track record in that regard than live-action.

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One day later and I could really now care less what Disney does with Marvel. The deal's done. It didn't keep me awake last night. I have more important real-life issues to deal with -- new career track and more schooling are upcoming.

We'll see in 3-5 years tops what the real impact of this is. Maybe as little as a year.

Bob Iger's late-great-uncle was Jerry Iger, a known illustrator and cartoonist in his day. As a matter of fact, Blackthorne Publishing put out a number of compilation books of Jerry's work (The Iger Comics Kingdom, Jerry Iger's Classic Jumbo Comics, Jerry Iger's Classic National Comics, and Jerry Iger's Golden Features). Any way, Jerry formed a partnership in the 1930's with Will Eisner, (dubbed the forefather of the modern comic book, the creator of "The Spirit", and mentor to one Frank Miller). Together, they formed Eisner & Iger Studios. The first person they hired was Jack Kirby, who with Stan Lee created many of the familiar faces of the Marvel roster.

At first, I figured, "Big deal. It was inevitable for Warner to start paying more attention to DC." Then I saw that Paul Levitz stepped down as publisher (actually, demoted to writer/contributing editor/consultant).

Wow. I have mixed feelings about that. Paul was a bit on the conservative side, but he did help to shepherd many positive business practices that Carmine Infantino had initiated when he was publisher. At least he's stying with DC.

As with the Marvel-Disney deal, it may be that little will change for the comics. We'll see in the next few years, I guess. Personally, I'd be happy if Dan Didio got booted and DC quit killing so may characters off.

The problem is that DC has taken after and followed the trends started by Marvel too often in the past 40 years. Sometimes you have to be the leader. There is such a thing as being too cautious as well as being too radical. I consider Didio and Quesada as being in the latter category which is why I absolutely despise their editorialships. They may be fine men (although frankly I think Joey Q is a goober) but overall I think they stink at their primary functions. The sooner they are gone and replaced by people who understand story as well as get product out on time(!) the better off both companies will be.

Joey Q and Didio have been better at orchestrating shock events for the sake of shock and temporary sales increases than actual continued, consistent quality in product. (There's consistent data that the actual sales increases from shock events is wearing off and that overall sales are still declining, bad economy or not. You can only soak the most rabid fanboys for so long before even they realize they're being led around by the nose.) This lack of consistency is a big part of the reason why I don't buy monthly comics in addition to the cover price. The sooner the 32-page format dies off and we get a product in a format that's worth the cover price, the better!

This restructuring of DC can be seen as following Marvel's lead again, too, regardless of whether the restructuring was planned ahead of time or not. The suddenness/abruptness of the changes taking place argue a quick change in the mentality of WB towards its DC properties.

I lean more towards the idea that WB felt they had to react to the Disney/Marvel merger instead of this being carefully planned for months. I had to laugh at the naive notion of somebody else on one of the Kool-Aid animation forum sites that this entire thing WASN'T done in reaction to the Marvel/Disney deal. Of course it was! You don't make announcements like this a week after your rival undergoes a big change unless it is a reaction.

DC doesn't feel like it can just sit by and let Marvel steal the complete limelight regardless of whether or not fanboys feel the move is kind of pathetic and late. They had to react and do something just for PR's sake, to show they're still in the game.

The bad part of being under the WB management microscope is that it's very likely some projects/monthlies may be discontinued if they don't think the sales justify a continuation. People have already been reassigned. You can bet more people will be shuffled or laid off in the near future, too. Some characters like Wonder Woman will stay in print regardless of whether the comic sells because WB thinks there's a market for and they don't want to weather another ultra-feminist stink like they did in the early 1970s... Other characters, unfortunately, may disappear for a long time and be used even less than they are now. I sincerely hope the WB management don't become that much of bean-counters. Some of DC's best characters are the more obscure, less-used ones.